


The Moon and The Sea

by moricat



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Comfort, Comrades, F/F, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9284843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moricat/pseuds/moricat
Summary: Short mourning blurb:In which Ymir stops by to chat with her friend Armin one evening near the end of her 13 years to talk about the late Eren Yeager on the beach.I love any excuse to write Ymir and especially to write her up against Armin and ESPECIALLY to write eremin and yumihisu supporting each other, so this was a hecka fun blurb to write! I’m not at my computer right now so I will edit the italics and such later.Enjoy if you can!!!





	

Armin watched as the waves crashed on the shore, the familiar smell of salt and brine traveling up through his nose. He swept his thumb over his own arm, holding himself tight as he rested against the sea stack in front of the sea on his home beach. Over a year had passed since the tragedy that everyone knew Armin would struggle to recover from… The smell of the ocean and the sound of the endless waves in the wind was something he associated with Eren’s loss ever since that awful day. While the tears fell less often than they did at the beginning, the empty place in his heart never stopped howling for his lover to come back. It never stopped hurting. Of course Armin expected as much, and was rather proud of himself for holding up as well as he was in the mean time though. He’d been traveling, staying in touch with his friends, writing, praying, and dreaming, keeping himself as healthy as possible. But the empty feeling, he knew, would never go away. And some nights, like this one, his heart ached extra woefully… 

He blinked slowly, his body simply going through its motions at the moment while his depression depleted him of emotions. He tried not to think, a difficult task for Armin Arlert, but, though slow, his brain still ran through any number of different thoughts… Why does sand feel so hot in the daytime but cold and damp in the evenings, like this one? He supposed the crumbled rocks and shells in it just conducted heat from the sun very well. Why does the light blue sky turn lavender, pink, and violet in the twilight hour like this? Maybe the heavens churn it that way to give humans pleasant sights for comfortable dreams… Why does the ocean have so much salt? No idea. Did god just put it there? Was it whale semen like the outside world teenagers always joked? He hoped not. Maybe there’s a big salt rock somewhere on earth that the waves always smack and carry its essence to all the oceans of the world? No matter… Nothing matters anymore… “Eren…”

“Hey, Shrimplet!” A familiar voice called. 

Armin slowly turned around, his heavy body taking its time, and found that the snarky voice came from Ymir. 

Ymir swaggered over to Armin’s space and plopped down beside him by the rock. “Ahh, these old bones of mine really don’t work like they used to. ‘My curse’ sure creeps up on you fast, I must say.” She croaned. 

The corner of Armin’s lip slightly floated up before floating back down to its empty expression. 

Ymir glanced at him and pursed her lips. “Alright, lamb chop, what’s eatin’ you, eh? No one likes a sad sack.”

Armin glanced back but resumed his gaze at the sea just as quickly. “Sorry, Ymir… Just depressed.”

“…Missing your cuddle buddy, eh?” 

“… Yeah.”

“Hmm. Well, you know, as morbid as it sounds, you’ve only got 4 years left before the clock strikes for you too. He’ll be waiting for you.”

Armin’s eyes welled up as his throat heated, a cry bubbling through his lips and burning his ticklish nose. He hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms, crying quietly in spite of Ymir’s presence. 

Ymir winced at herself, feeling guilty for misspeaking in her attempts to comfort him. “Ah, not the right thing to say, huh? My bad. That’s what I’d be telling myself if I were you, is all. Historia wouldn’t like that, but what can I say? I’m an honest human being.”

“…Eren wanted me to live. I’m trying my best. And I’m okay for the most part, but there’s still this part of me deep down that wants to hurry up and be with him again…” he confessed, his voice cracking and his tears growing as they fell in big drops from his eyelids. “And I feel like he’d be so ashamed of me… betraying his will for me like that…” He buried his face back in his arms, still crying, while Ymir thought for a moment…

“…That suicidal bastard has no room to talk.”

Armin gritted his teeth at such a disrespectful comment towards his late husband and raised his head back up, but Ymir continued before he could speak. 

“As much as he sought after death? He’s got no reason to judge you. My point is, don’t feel shitty over that. He knows you, he knows how hard it is. He’s not gonna be ashamed of you. He’s not gonna be mad. The only thing that big sap would do is hold you and say ‘I’m sorry’ while he drools over your hair and dry humps your knee. You two were gross, you know that? And that’s coming from ME.” She laughed. 

Armin’s jaw relaxed and his expression softened again. As always, Ymir knew what to say to him, even if she was horrible at saying it. She was right though…  
If Eren were alive and sitting there before him, hearing that Armin felt this way, the first thing he’d do is hold him tight, and kiss him, and beg him in a whisper to forgive him and to _‘Just hold on… Just hold on…’_  
Armin prayed an apology for minding Eren’s will above actually remembering Eren. Eren is always alive if he remembers him… He is always alive… And of course, Eren would just say _‘Hey, come on, it’s not your fault. Everything’s okay. Don’t be sad, please. Crying is my job. I love you, Armin…’_

“…You with me, shorty?” Ymir finally asked after Armin seemed to drift off into space in his mind for a long moment. 

“Ymir, Historia is grateful for every single second you have with her. Don’t ever change. And give her every second of your time.”

Ymir snorted. “What a sap, you certainly never change, do you, bunny boy?” she laughed, ruffling his hair and smiling to hear him laugh in return. “…So tell me, are there any non-sappy stories about you two getting into mischief over the years?”

“Oh, we got into trouble all the time when we were kids. If there was something I wanted to do, Eren would make sure we’d do it, no matter how much people were against it.” He chuckled. “Oh, there was a time in the trainees corps where the commandant said something really mean to me and Eren got so mad he insisted I help him break into his office and steal his cookie stash. And of course, I said we shouldn’t do that. But of course we did it anyway.”

“I think I remember how this one ends…”

Armin blushed and stifled his embarrassed laughter. “The Commandant made an example of us as soon as he found out the cookies were stolen. He said he would have done nothing about it except the culprits made a fatal mistake he wouldn’t accept from his soldiers in training: We left the cookie tin right out in the open in the cabin during a surprise inspection, crumbs all over our beds. He pulled us both out of roll formation by the hair and displayed us as incompetent fools.”

“That was pretty hilarious!” Ymir commented, hunched over laughing in the cold sand. 

“Yeah. But after that he was surprisingly pretty nice to us. He said he liked our gumption. And he actually hoped we would use our team work get back at him for calling me whatever it was he called me. It was strange, really. But it turns out he was fond of Eren anyway for being the son of Carla Yeager.”

“Damn, how did I miss all this gossip?” 

“You were MIA when we found out about the Carla thing.”

“Ah, right.”

“Historia missed you a lot back then by the way.”

“Yeah, crazy-eyes told me.” She said, of course referring to Eren. “Say, fuzz nuts… You’re smart. Do you think she resents me at all?…” she inquired sadly. 

Armin was surprised. Ymir never showed herself in a vulnerable light… “No, of course not. Why?” 

“I don’t know. I’m pretty hard to love sometimes. In the face of a goddess, who wouldn’t be?” 

“I understand… That’s why it’s good to have friends. To tell you that it’s all in your head and that you’ve nothing to worry about cuz we can see that she loves you more than anything.” He gave her a reassuring smile and placed his hand on her shoulder affectionately. “Even when you call her friends mean nick names and drink all the wine.”

Ymir snorted, giving Armin a playful nudge, and Armin could swear he saw her wipe a tear from her eye… “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking, baby face! Heaven knows I’m a goddess too.”

Armin grinned. “That’s right.”

Ymir sighed and shifted in the sand with an aching groan, ready to stand back up again. “Welp, guess I’m headin’ home. Nice talking to ya, goo goo eyes.”

Armin quickly took her arm. “Ah– wait, wait… Wouldn’t you like to watch the moon rise over the ocean? It’s pretty soul cleansing.”

Ymir beamed. Of course she knew the beauty of the moon… It was her favorite thing in the world. “Yeah, alright.” And with that, she settled back in her sandy seat. 

The friends watched as the moon slowly rose over the horizon, chatting about nostalgic memories of their trainee days and gossiping about their lovers. Since talking about Eren was Armin’s best medicine in mourning, he desperately needed this quality time and sent Ymir endless gratitude with his happy eyes. Ymir smiled to herself the entire time, so glad to have had this lovely evening reminiscing with this good friend on the tail end of her life… She never once had a boring conversation with Armin Arlert.


End file.
